


Perfectly Imperfect

by Sapphic_Futurist



Series: Something More Than What They Are [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, And He Gets One Because He Deserves It Now, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Canonical Character Death, Divorce, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Face-Fucking, Love After Divorce, M/M, Marriage breakdown, Oral Sex, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Divorce, Reconciliation, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Temporary Character Death, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:00:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26174620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphic_Futurist/pseuds/Sapphic_Futurist
Summary: Pepper is quiet for a brief moment, giving him a calculated look before her gaze flickers over to the pile of letters. There’s no way she doesn’t know, because most are marked in the top left corner, sharp handwriting spelling out the return address of S. Rogers.“It’s pathetic, I know.” Tony sighs and presses his lips together, trying to convey more than he has the energy to say. Of course, it’s pathetic. Waking up and realizing that he’s managed to survive the end of the world, twice, fought against death and won, and be desperate to get his hands on a couple of letters from the ex-husband who almost beat him to death and never apologized.The irony is not lost on Tony in the slightest.Pepper’s eyes search his for a moment but there’s no judgement there. “It’s not pathetic. The things that comfort us when we’re hurting aren’t pathetic.” She pauses to give him a sad smile, and rests her fingertips feather-light on his wrist. “No more pathetic than sleeping in the hallway outside your ex-husband's hospital room for a week.”
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Something More Than What They Are [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892860
Comments: 83
Kudos: 333





	Perfectly Imperfect

**Author's Note:**

> When change is a long process, and never perfect. When we screw up over and over again but make a commitment to do better next time. When loving each other is difficult but finally worth it. 
> 
> As always, fundamentalblue is a fantastic beta and I love her for all the effort she put into this story. 
> 
> Enjoy.

Four years after The Snap and one year before Steve and his entourage show up at Pepper and Happy’s lake house, the letters start.

Somewhere along the way, Tony has settled. The burnt knot in his chest that was his marriage has grown smaller with time, and though he carries it with him, it no longer weighs him down. After Thanos, the world was in chaos, and Tony was tasked with fixing as much as he could, technology abound as he tackled food crises, infrastructure crises, the oil crises that forced the world into a globalized green energy era.

Tony has been busy, is still busy, and it feels good. Rewarding, on the best days.

There’s no reason to concern himself with what Steve Rogers is doing, though he still picks up the occasional breadcrumbs from the news on the off chance he’s home to catch it. 

Things are better.

The nightmares started to fade a few months after the last time he saw Steve, walking away because Tony asked him to, though he imagines that there will always be the odd evening where he’ll still wake up drenched in sweat, swallowing around bile and the taste of pennies. There are only two nightmares now, fan favourites really, and they’re always the same.

Tony and Steve are in Siberia, only Peter is there instead of Barnes. It can end one of two ways: Tony watching as Steve beats Peter to death with the shield, the Spider-Man mask floating past his feet in a river of blood, or Tony, feeling Steve’s life slip away through his fingers as he and Peter destroy Captain America and fight for their lives.

Even now, the gore of it all can still leave him retching.

It doesn’t take a shrink to tell Tony what these dreams mean, and living in a world without his partner and the kid is only living a pseudo-life, so he does his best to pretend he’s never had either. Instead, he focuses on making himself useful where he can, and on Pepper and Happy and their beautiful little daughter when he can’t. Morgan is a blessing and watching her learn and grow is a gift. She’s too smart for her own good and Tony worries after her endlessly.

Sometimes he thinks about the family he might’ve had with Steve, when Morgan’s brown eyes peer up at him and her face cracks into a smile. When in his dreams he can hear her voice calling out _daddy_ instead of _uncle_ and see Steve’s massive arms wrapped around her small, sleeping frame. On those days, he stays away until the pain fades into the background and he can breathe again. 

There’s no question of causality when the nightmares return at full force after the first letter arrives.

It isn’t anything as romantic as one letter for every day of the year, like Pepper’s favourite romantic comedy Tony’s been forced to sit through too many times. It started with one, the only letter that Tony ever opened, and was followed by ten more. The twelfth never came.

Which shouldn’t matter because Tony hasn’t even read them all, not after the first.

When a letter starts with, _I understand why the letter after Siberia wasn’t an apology_ ’ and ends with ‘ _I hope one day you can see my perspective and find a way to forgive me,’_ it doesn’t spark motivation to run through the same painful song and dance every thirty days.

There had been a glimmer of something in the first letter. An almost genuine apology, closer than Steve had ever gotten before and because Tony didn’t read the rest of the letters, he lets himself believe that Steve was getting there.

It still didn’t change anything.

But if he’s finally getting there, that’s good. Great even, for Steve.

So when Steve arrives at the lake house, devastatingly handsome with a few new lines on his face—take that Dad, peak of human perfection and still aging all the same—Tony can greet him far warmer than he ever has before.

Steve comes to him as an old friend with a mosaic of history and Tony doesn’t allow it to go any further than that. Steve only falls out of step once, when his eyes linger on Morgan in Tony’s arms and he gives Tony the look of ‘ _is she yours?_ ’

Tony gives him a sharp shake of his head and invites them inside to stay for lunch. 

In the month after, he waits, but no letter comes.

Tony discovers time travel and drives out to the Compound, shield in his trunk, and has an uncomfortable reconciliation with Steve. It’s superficial, as they shake hands and talk about moving on with the word resentment tossed between them. As if such a menial world could fully capture the battleground where their future together went to die in the waste of Siberia and never came home again.

Steve looks resigned and it doesn’t fit. It also doesn’t leave the familiar icy twist in Tony’s gut anymore so maybe it’s good enough. That’s what his life has been reduced to. A series of _good enough_ and _could be worse_. It can always be worse.

“You stopped sending letters.” Tony makes conversation as casually as a hole in the head, wincing when it comes out closer to an accusation. Steve shoots him a quirked little smile, eyes crinkling around the edges in a new way.

“I didn’t think you were reading them.”

“I wasn’t.”

“So why bother sending them?”

Steve holds the door open for him and Tony steps through. They don’t touch, he’s careful of that. They haven’t touched since the last time Steve laid his hand over the whole of the arc reactor and pressed his fingertips into the scar tissue he helped to create. Sure, they’ve seen each other. A handful of times before everything went to shit.

But Tony knows the power that Steve holds in his hands and has been careful never to give himself that kind of permission again.

How long has it been now? Six, seven years? And he can still feel the phantom of Steve’s palm on his lower back, guiding him through the Compound with warm familiarity, after all this time.

Tony shrugs. “I assumed they were important to you.”

“They are, but that doesn’t mean they have to be important to you. You don’t need to read them if you don’t want to, Tony. We’ve moved on. I know that.”

Something about the way Steve says that filters oddly in the back of Tony’s mind. There’s a resignation that he’s not familiar with. A peace that surprises him. It’s not that he wants Steve to still be hung up on him. Tony has found his own ways to move on too. By now, he’s even been with other people. A few men. Two women. One that was almost important to him.

A beautiful creature, with a fascinating mind that kept him on his toes. One hell of a temper, all biting words and cold regard when she was angry. Tony had enjoyed the passion of it all, having a partner who could finally match him again.

It had ended after they’d been in bed together one night, the same as any of the other few dozen times over a series of rapid weeks that blurred into months. Tony had been almost content, driving into the warmth of her body over and over again with one of her hands gripped into his hip, urging him on. He’d nosed at her throat and whispered in her ear to look at him when she came and when she glanced up—

Blue eyes that made him feel cold inside.

A sorry comparison to the blue eyes carefully watching him now, that somehow still reached out to thaw the winter that lived in his chest, hinting at spring.

He doesn’t want Steve to be unhappy, but something about Steve not trying to push him now feels foreign. A sliver of caution and hope catches in his gut and twists.

There’s no time to respond because Tony comes face to face with the rest of the team and the planning starts. This time, there’s no excuse for time alone which is a small blessing and allows Tony to focus on the work. This time, he can avoid being trapped in the past. 

The unthinkable happens, and in the mere seconds between Tony realizing what has to be done and snapping his fingers, he thinks about the moment that he proposed. It seems like a fitting last memory if he has to choose one.

_They’re sitting on the edge of the Tower, getting ready for the move up to the Compound. It’s been a year, maybe, since they first got together and it hasn’t been easy. In many ways, Tony feels that they’ve already shoved a lifetime into a few months._

_Steve sets an arm on one of the safety rails so he can rest his chin against it. He’s sitting with legs dangling over the edge of the building because the man loves a meaningless thrill. Tony is next to him, legs folded over each other, resting his head on Steve’s shoulder._

_“I’m not an easy man to love.”_

_Steve barks out a surprised laugh and squeezes the arm around Tony’s shoulder a little tighter. “What makes you say that, sweetheart.”_

_“Experience living with myself? Trying to make things work with Pepper? Every interview my father ever did?” Tony’s only teasing, nudging back against Steve. “I know I’m not an easy man to love, Steve. I’m difficult and emotional. Arguably manic, at times, though if that adds a layer of excitement for you who am I to deny you? Definitely a workaholic. Borderline alcoholic. I say things that are mean on purpose when I’m angry. I’m incredibly demanding, in more ways than one.”_

_Steve cocks an eyebrow when Tony ends with a put-on leer. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this. It feels like a trap.”_

_“I’m just saying, do you really know what you’re getting yourself into with me?”_

_“Of course. Tony, it’s been over a year. If I was going anywhere, I would’ve left by now. What’s this about?”_

_Tony leans forward and kisses him for all he’s worth, shoving his tongue into his mouth and gripping the back of his neck to keep him in place. As always, Steve matches him with equal fervour and if he doesn’t pull back soon, Steve is going to ruin this moment for them both without even realizing what he’s ruining. If you can call kinky rooftop sex ‘ruining the moment’._

_“Steve. Steve, wait.” Tony’s breathless and he gives Steve the biggest smile his face has to offer. “Marry me.”_

_Steve jerks back, a series of shock, disbelief, confusion, and all-encompassing love darting across his features in that exact order._

_“Tony—”_

_“Steve. Marry me. I love you. There’s nothing better out there. Will you marry me? Please, say you’ll marry me.”_

_“Yes. Absolutely yes. Tony!” Steve’s mouth is on his and in this moment, he knows, this is how he’ll die one day. After a lifetime with Steve, breathing his last breath with the remnants of an infinite number of Steve’s kisses on his mouth._

Tony snaps.

Everything blurs and when his vision clears enough that he can see Pepper gently pulling Peter away from him, his eyes struggle to focus. Nothing has ever hurt like this before, and he’s ready to let go. Turns out, what they say is true. You go when you’re ready. When everything is complete. And there’s only one more thing. He’s got one last thing to do.

Over Pepper’s shoulder, Tony’s eyes find Steve’s. He only just makes out what she’s saying, the ringing in his ear a fitting companion to the burning that licks at the right side of his body. There are tears in Steve’s eyes. He’s staggering to his knees.

 _I love you_. Tony blinks once and slips away.

It seems unfair that floating in the time between death and _after_ —whatever it is—that he should dream of Steve. After years of quiet yearning, of living a half-life of restless contentment at it’s best, and devastating isolation at it’s worse, he thought maybe it might be done.

 _You can rest now_. Tony tries repeating Pepper’s words to his cracked, chipped heart but it can’t hear him. Even in the _after_ , Tony’s heart beats for Steve and he should have known.

Something tugs at his consciousness.

Is it consciousness after death?

Being a ghost might be a nice experience. He could haunt Steve. Rile him up on his good days, slip his fingers through his hair on the bad ones. Except then he’d have to watch Steve mourn and Tony can’t bear to think of what it might be like to drown in that ocean of grief.

At least Steve has everything else he could need. Family, a best friend. A place to finally call home. All the things that Tony has found in his own way, and he should be happy for his lot. It’s not that he’s bitter, he waded through a well-lived life and there have been plenty of moments of joy. But after meeting Steve, he thought there would be more. So much more.

Dying doesn’t feel like as much of a loss as he expected. Maybe more of his heart was already here than he realized. 

The tugging becomes more demanding and Tony would wave it away if he knew how.

He opens his eyes and the light is blinding.

Gasping, trying to draw deep heavy breaths around _something_ , Tony struggles against the almost-pain and the _something_ is gone. For a moment, he breaths clean sterile air. It scorches the inside of his lungs.

“Tony? Tony! Honey, can you hear me?”

The letters, he thinks with desperation. He hasn’t had a chance to read them. If he had known, he would have read them, just for the closure. Just to know. It’s not fair that he should die without getting a chance to read them.

“You’re here, okay, you’re safe. I’ve got you.”

The light is too blinding and he has to keep closing his eyes. He’s trying to force the words out but it’s difficult to tell if his mouth is even moving. If he’s dead maybe they won’t hear him anyway, but on the off chance that he’s not, he needs to try.

_Letters._

“Shh, breath. Don’t try to talk.”

 _Letters_.

“Tony, oh god.” Something presses against his forehead, the unburnt side of his face. Thin hands, delicate fingers. The brush of long hair against his cheek. Tony smiles because Pepper’s always been the one to be there. She’s never let him down before.

 _Letters_.

“Letters? What letters?”

She can hear him. A small mercy. Maybe he’s not dead after all.

“Bedroom. Side table.” The words are a rasp he can barely make out, and they slur across his tongue. There’s a new haze forming at the edges of his awareness and Tony wonders if maybe they’re giving him painkillers. God knows, he deserves them now. 

Risky though, giving a man in pain for a decade refuge in opiates. Pepper should know better, the countless times she’s had to pry bottles from his hands.

“Okay. Okay, Tony, I’ll bring you your letters. But you need to rest now.” Pepper’s breath catches on a sob and if he had the strength, he’d grab her hand and press it to the side of his face. Remind her that he’s here, he’s alive, or at least, something that feels like a modicum of being alive. Instead, he musters what he can to twitch a few fingers in her direction, pinky resting against pinky. It’s enough. “Rest now, darling. You saved the universe. Rest.”

Tony blinks, but his eyes refuse to open.

The next time he wakes up—or, one of the times, Pepper tells him that he’s been in and out for days—he can see that he’s in a hospital room, charred arm at his side, body riddled with cuts and bruises like ink spilled across his chest and abdomen. Nothing hurts, and he’s flying high.

The letters are in a neat pile on the roll-away table beside the hospital bed to his right. Pepper is dozing in the chair to his left with her shoes kicked off and her legs curled up underneath her. It would be a shame to wake her when she looks so tired, and Tony tries to shift quietly in the bed so as not to disturb her.

He disturbs her anyway.

“How are you feeling?” Pepper rubs the sleep from her eyes, leaving a smudge of mascara that veers off to the right side of one cheekbone. It’s perfectly imperfect, like the little knot of hair that’s formed from where she’s been lying against the seatback.

Tony doesn’t have an answer so he just shakes his head.

“No pain?”

“No pain.”

Pepper is quiet for a brief moment, giving him a calculated look before her gaze flickers over to the pile of letters. There’s no way she doesn’t know, because most are marked in the top left corner, sharp handwriting spelling out the return address of _S. Rogers_.

“It’s pathetic, I know.” Tony sighs and presses his lips together, trying to convey more than he has the energy to say.

Of course, it’s pathetic. Waking up and realizing that he’s managed to survive the end of the world, twice, fought against death and won, and be desperate to get his hands on a couple of letters from the ex-husband who almost beat him to death and never apologized. 

The irony is not lost on Tony in the slightest.

Pepper’s eyes search his for a moment but there’s no judgement there. “It’s not pathetic. The things that comfort us when we’re hurting aren’t pathetic.” She pauses to give him a sad smile, and rests her fingertips feather-light on his wrist. “No more pathetic than sleeping in the hallway outside your ex-husband's hospital room for a week.”

Tony flinches. “He’s here?”

“Of course, he’s here. You really think that he’d be anywhere else?” A thumb strokes loving circles against his skin and her voice is soft, accepting. “The rest of us may not understand it, Tony. But you two love each other. You always have. I don’t have to like it to know that it’s true.”

“It’s not like I’m thrilled about it,” Tony grumbles under his breath, and Pepper smiles, shaking her head. She’s so good to him. Always.

“Do you want me to get him?”

“No.”

The answer seems to surprise them both for a moment, and Pepper’s eyebrows creep up a few notches but she doesn’t challenge him. Instead, she gives him a firm nod, shifts until she’s far enough over the bed that she can press a kiss to his forehead, and runs her fingers briefly through his hair.

“I’ll give you some time to yourself. Oh, here,” Pepper places his cell phone on the table beside the letters. “You can call when you’re ready. For me. Or,” she glances conspicuously towards the door before giving him a cheeky little smile and slipping back into her shoes.

“I love you, Pep.”

“I love you too, Tony. More than you know. Thank God you’re still here.” Pepper hesitates when she turns away, closing the space between them again to kiss his face one more time, as if he might slip away before she gets back. He tries to reassure her with a light smile, letting the fingers on his good hand brush the inside of her wrist.

After she’s gone, Tony picks up the letters and lets them run through his fingers, a river of paper that slides across the bed. They’re all out of order and he has no idea where to start. For a second, he remembers the first one, how much hope had interwoven into the initial dread, only to have it sliced away when the letter hadn’t revealed anything new. Well, maybe that wasn’t fair. Steve had tried with the first letter. And even a one percent change was still a change, right?

Tony rips the corner off one, then the next, picking up speed until he has almost a dozen letters spilled across his lap and the envelopes are in tatters on the tile beside him. They’re various lengths and because Steve is perfect to a fault, each one is dated. His meticulous handwriting is the same on every one except the last, a hurried mess where the words are scribbled near the end, as if he was in a rush to finish.

Tony picks up the letter that follows the original. It starts with, _you don’t have to see my perspective, I’m not sure why I said that_ and ends with _maybe what you said all those years ago was right. You’re a difficult man to love. And so am I._

The letters end up being a glimpse inside Steve’s mind, and at times, into his soul.

Forever two steps forward, Steve takes one step back. Sometimes he doesn’t take any steps, he just vents and blames. When he justifies it makes Tony’s chest ache, every word a tiny shield to the arc reactor. But for the most part, Tony learns that over the last year Steve has gone through something of a self-discovery.

Now he understands why they say you should never send the letters you write when you’re processing. They never warn you about the risks. How simple words that mean nothing when they’re sent out into the universe land in the hands of someone else and explode like landmines, the shrapnel of guilt and growth exploding on an unarmed civilian.

They’ve landed. And they’re ripping Tony to shreds.

By the end he’s crying, head in his hands, the letters folded along their creases and set in a neat pile back on the table.

Steve has changed. They’ve both changed over the years, but reading this. Steve has _changed_. There’s no other way he can explain it or describe it. Something in him has shifted and Steve has had some type of revelation, maybe.

Steve sums it up best when he says: _Tony, I would have done damn well near anything to have you. I told myself that it was okay that if I just kept trying, maybe I could get somewhere. But coming into your hotel room that day... If I could take that back. I keep thinking maybe, maybe, if I had just waited, things would have been different. That was it, wasn’t it? The last nail in the coffin. Maybe I’ll never know._

Tony’s never thought about it that way, the utter disrespect of Steve barging his way in all those years ago a familiar memory. But a nail in the coffin? A behaviour Tony had come to expect from Steve, that hadn’t surprised him in the slightest. Maybe it should have and a swell of pity and nausea rises in his stomach when he thinks about the Tony Stark he was all those years ago. A thing to be walked over. 

For Steve to understand that—to see that—

“FRI?”

“Hi Boss, I missed you.” FRIDAY’s voice comes out tinny from the speaker of the cell phone, but she’s there in all her cheerful glory.

Tony smiles. “I missed you too, baby girl. I need you to run some odds for me.”

“My pleasure!”

“If I call him. If I let him come in here. What are the chances anything will be different this time?” The question feels pitiable to his own ears. He tries to remind himself what Pepper had said about being pathetic but finds no peace there.

FRIDAY is quiet for a beat. “Impossible to calculate, Boss. But if I could venture a guess, perhaps new data is worth follow up experimentation. Difficult to say if the yield will be similar without further study.” He’s proud of her. Growing every day, and keeping Tony on his toes.

“Because I’m a scientist first, right?” Tony asks, with fond sarcasm.

“Precisely.”

Tony draws a long breath and tips his head back against the thin hospital pillow. It’s unfair that he’s thinking about this again, but then, when has life with Steve Rogers ever been fair? Tony gives and gives and gives of himself, always has, to a fault really, and Steve sits back and basks in the glow of Tony’s charity.

After all this time, Steve still holds his heart in a vice. The past few days have been an emotional hellhole and damn it, Tony just wants his ex-husband to hold him.

“Call him, won’t you?”

“Of course, Boss.”

The ticking of the plain white and black clock mocks him as the seconds drag on like hours. There’s a shuffling outside of his door and in his minds’ eye Tony gets a glimpse of a rumpled Steve, scrambling off the ground when his phone goes off and wiping sleep from his eyes.

The door pushes open impossibly slow and that’s exactly the sight that greets him, eyes red-rimmed and hidden in shadow, hair askew. He must have showered at some point and changed into fresh clothes but even that looks like it could have been days ago, now.

Steve hesitates in the doorway and doesn’t speak. He opens his mouth more than once, but the words don’t come.

Tony takes pity on him. “If you come in here, I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If I ask you to go, you’ll go.”

Steve flinches, knuckles whitening around the handle of the door still clutched in his left hand. For a second, Tony thinks that he might deny him. That Steve might push ahead, bully his way in, and refuse to leave until he’s gotten what he needs of Tony, whatever that is now.

But he doesn’t. Steve gives a deliberate, measured nod, releasing the door and venturing one step closer. “I promise.”

“Good. I’m running a little low on energy these days. Come, sit.”

Steve doesn’t bother smiling at his poor attempt at humour, always so black and white in his stoicism. He half collapses into the chair at Tony’s hip, dragging it closer but pausing with a hand hovering over Tony’s own on the bed to wait for permission. Tony watches in confusion as Steve slowly lowers his hand back into his lap, face a mask of pain and unrestrained desperation, but doesn’t touch him.

“Steve.” Tony reaches out and grips Steve’s fingers, holding on as tight as he can.

And Steve… Steve bursts into tears, collapsing in on himself until he’s folded in two, forehead pressed against Tony’s knuckles while giant sobs tremor like earthquakes through his body. His grief washes over them both as if Tony will be able to hold him in place through the typhoon. They’re both washed away, the tears slipping in silence down Tony’s own cheek as he squeezes those long, thick fingers over and over again.

Steve’s whispering his name like a prayer, cracked and raw when his other hand comes up to clutch Tony’s wrist in a vice grip.

 _Don’t let me go_.

“Tony. Tony, I love you. I’m sorry, it’s not fair—it’s selfish. I’m sorry. I love you. I love you so much and you—” He doesn’t quiet, sobs turning into gasping, wheezing breaths as he cycles headlong into panic so Tony tugs at his hand trying to free himself from Steve’s restraint. He can do this for Steve. Hell, he’s so far past kidding himself. Tony can do this for himself, too.

“Steve. Steve. Let go.” Steve’s hands fly back and come up to cover his face instead, as if he can’t bear to look Tony in the eye after everything.

The sheets crinkle as he shifts, brittle and paper-thin, and Tony slides over to the side of the mattress making what room he can in the meager space. It’s heartbreaking to see Steve this way, just a shell of the man he knew.

They’ve been apart longer than they’ve been together now, and Tony thinks about the number of times he’s seen Steve fall apart. He can count them on one hand, hold them like little glass figurines because they’re just as precious, all these times Steve has fallen apart over Tony. As if he matters more than anything else in the world. As if he just can’t help himself.

Tony’s voice is small and strained. “Come here.”

Steve’s head snaps up, startled. He clocks the space on the bed, the way that Tony holds his good arm up waiting to pull him in, the blanket pulled back in an open invitation. “No, it’s—you don’t have to… I’ll be—”

“It’s not just for you,” Tony says, and it’s as simple as that.

With robotic movements, Steve rises on unsteady legs and all but collapses next to Tony, his head coming down onto Tony’s chest and his arms wrapping around Tony’s waist where they hesitate and don’t squeeze.

“Hold me. You won’t hurt me.”

The dam breaks and Steve lets it all go, clinging to Tony like a drowning man. He drags Tony down with him, down below the surface of the water where everything is cold and black and nothing should survive except, they’re down there together and that can be enough for survival. Tony brushes a hand through Steve’s hair and cradles his head. He’d breathe his last breath into this man if it just meant he’d live even a second longer.

“I thought I’d lost you.” Steve’s voice is a hot whisper against the hospital gown, bleeding through to swipe at his skin. “All this time. All this time, Tony, I’ve been making it work. At least I knew you were out there. That you were okay. But this—” Steve’s voice cracks with a choked sob and he balls his hands into fists in whatever part of cloth he can reach.

Steve’s body curves around all of Tony, covering as much as him as he can, even down at the bottom of the bed where Tony can see Steve’s feet, still in their shoes, tangling with his own in their bright red, no-slip hospital socks someone’s put on him.

“I’m right here. Okay, Steve? I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.” Tony almost adds, _how could I ever leave you?_ But it’s too much, too soon, and he’d give anything to get off of this emotional rollercoaster and slide into their bed even if there hasn’t been a ‘ _their bed’_ for seven years and let Steve hold him and keep him safe. To give the same back to Steve.

Tomorrow, when things are clearer, maybe he’ll remember.

For the time being, Tony holds Steve close and breaths him in, drifting into the quiet that stretches between them on the heels of Steve’s sobs. His breathing evens out under Tony’s hand while he traces the mosaic of interconnected muscle in Steve’s back that flows and constricts beneath his fingers.

It’s such a terrible cliché, clinging to Steve after he’s knocked on death’s door and managed to walk away some semblance of intact. That he’s survived the end of the world and still finds himself face to face with the ruins of his relationship with his husband. Ex-husband. Not that it matters.

When Steve finally quiets, Tony reaches past him, trying not to jostle or dislodge him, and taps him on the shoulder with the top letter from the pile. The most recent one. The one where Steve’s ended with, _I don’t think I was ever the man you deserved. Not then. Maybe now, but I can’t say that everything is different now either. Sam tells me I should stop sending you these letters, that they prove everything I say wrong. But I’m an imperfect man, Tony. Isn’t that what you always wanted to hear? I’m an imperfect man and I’m working on it every day. I promise._

“You’ve been busy.”

Steve drags his exhausted eyes up, mouth set in a firm line. “You read them.”

“Yeah. You know how it is in the hospital. Things get a bit boring.” Tony imagines his face must morph into a teasing smile, it feels like a teasing smile, but Steve doesn’t react. Just keeps looking at him as if he might explode or run from the room.

It’s a look Tony knows well. Being vulnerable. Exposed and laid bare.

“And what did you… I mean did you…?”

“Don’t ask me now. I almost died, or maybe I did die, I’m not sure. I don’t know how I feel or what to think. I don’t know anything anymore, Steve. Except that—” Tony swallows, clears his throat, closes his eyes, and opens them to stare into the warmest blue eyes he’s ever seen. When he forces out the words, they’re little more than a whisper of a breeze through translucent curtains. “Except that I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

“Tony.” Steve squeezes him tighter, presses his face into his chest and breaths. Wet spots appear below the arc reactor and Tony realizes that Steve is crying again, silent and motionless. “It’s enough.”

“Can we just sleep?”

“Tried that before, didn’t work, remember?”

Tony taps his back with the letter again and presses his nose into the top of Steve’s hair.

“Different circumstances, can’t do much like this.”

Steve shakes with quiet laughter that feels foreign after so many tears and a memory so painful, and reaches down between them to pull the blanket up. The hospital room is cold and the blanket is a sorry excuse for warmth but with Steve at his side, Tony feels himself start to thaw and he nudges closer, wherever he can reach, out towards the ease and comfort that Steve’s brought with him.

His own personal heater.

Tony dozes for a while, in and out, floating along the crest of the opiates and Steve’s hums of contentment in his sleep. Amazing, that Steve can fall asleep here, like this, after all that’s happened and Tony chalks it up to something similar to a rabbit, when totally safe and at peace, flopping onto its side and showing its soft underbelly.

Tony thinks he’s seen less of the Steve Rogers he knows today than ever before and that’s terrifying. Once again, he’s holding a stranger in his arms, but he’s excited now. Eager and hopeful.

A dangerous thing after all they’ve been through together. 

Pepper returns later, how much later Tony couldn’t say, and hovers in the doorway. He smiles at her, peering up at her over the top of Steve’s head where it’s pillowed on his chest and gives a slight lift of his eyebrows, a silent _what can you do?_

Pepper shakes her head and rests her temple against the doorframe.

“I did it again,” Tony whispers.

She shakes her head. “You didn’t. This is different.”

Tony’s heavy eyes flicker closed and he forces them back open. By the time he can fix his gaze on the door, Pepper is already gone.

Sleep greets him like a gentle, early-autumn breeze and he falls asleep wrapped in the safety of Steve’s arms.

“Come stay with me,” Steve is saying, the newspaper folded in his lap and Tony isn’t sure where he’s even found one. The StarkPad, which could just as effortlessly give him news from around the globe, sits neglected on the side table because Steve is still old-fashioned in more ways than one and the tips of his fingers are ink-stained evidence.

“There’s nowhere to stay. The Compound doesn’t even exist anymore.”

Steve blinks. “Then invite me to stay with you.”

They haven’t talked about what was said a few days ago. They haven’t talked about the letters, or the fact that Steve still hasn’t left the hospital grounds, and they certainly haven’t talked about the fact that when the visiting hours end and Tony’s streamline of guests dries up, Steve curls up in Tony’s hospital bed and holds him until morning.

They haven’t talked about Siberia, or the divorce, or anything of substance and for his part, Tony is too afraid of all the answers to ask any questions now.

This is the closest Steve’s come to broaching the subject again, and Tony feels the familiar rush of endorphins that makes him want to head for the hills. It starts with a twist in his belly, his heart rate kicking up, an extra mouthful of saliva to swallow around before he speaks. He spends every waking moment thinking about what this is, what this means, what it could mean, but when it comes down to it, the words stay trapped behind the jail-cell bars of his molars.

“Steve…”

“Give me a chance,” Steve says in a low voice as if one of the nurses in the hallway could hear and come rushing in to stop him. “I’m not saying that this is us working it out or reconciling, because it’s not. But give me a chance here, Tony. After everything that’s happened.”

“After everything that’s changed?” Tony supplies and Steve gives him a slow nod, the lines of his forehead shifting and contracting between his eyebrows. His shoulders are slumped forward, something that might have signaled comfort a few minutes ago, but now give off an air of resignation while he sits there, prepared to take his lot if Tony turns him down.

And Tony should turn him down.

He should, because people don’t change. Not really. Maybe in small, subtle ways, but not in the monumental, sea-parting ways that Steve would need to change and yet here he is, wearing his heart on his sleeve. Here Tony is, the weak man now with the weaker, broken body to match, prepared to let his husband hurt him again.

“I’ll still be here if you say no.”

Tony readjusts in the bed, fiddling with the edge of the strap to the harness that keeps his destroyed arm close to his belly. “They’re releasing me tomorrow.” He forces himself to meet Steve’s eye. “Okay. Yeah, okay.”

Steve doesn’t smile. He looks gutted.

“Okay.”

Steve wakes up screaming every night for a week.

He tries to insist on sleeping in another room, where his nightmares can only hurt himself, because he wakes up screaming Tony’s name and admits that he sees Tony snapping and smells the way his flesh was melting from the bone when he’d gotten Tony’s body into his arms and carried him to safety, limp and lifeless.

Steve tries to protect Tony from himself, but Tony won’t let him. Doesn’t want him to hide.

“We sleep better together, always have.” 

Steve sees right through the shaky logic, but it’s enough to keep him in bed for another night.

“Wrap your arms around me, Steve, I’m right here,” earns him a second night later in the week.

Tonight, things are different because Steve is halfway out of bed with his feet already on the floor before Tony wraps his fingers around Steve’s forearm and tries to hold him still. As if he could restrain the super-soldier if he didn’t want to be held down. Steve wants to go, to flee to some unknown black corner to lick his wounds in private while Tony sleeps, but it won’t change anything.

Nothing will change as long as they aren’t talking, and they’re trying, but progress is slow and Tony’s having a hard time unravelling the past seven years and reconciling them with the end of their marriage. Doubt plagues him in intermittent spurts that knock the wind out of him and kick him when he’s down. Mixed with his recovery and the emotional horrors of the battle, Tony needs Steve’s patience more now than ever. 

Yesterday he’d been tempted to tell Steve to go.

But Tony wants him to stay. Now, then. Forever. He wants Steve to stay and never hurt him again and he can see that Steve wants that too. At dinner, Steve eats his meal and asks Tony about his day, about his pain, about whether or not he’s heard from Pepper, and how Peter is adjusting back into his life. When the meal is put away, Steve asks him where he wants to start.

They haven’t gotten to Siberia. Tony’s terrified of what will happen when they do. But he learns so much about Steve and sees things that make him wonder who took sanding paper to the sharp corners of Steve’s self, polishing him into something even more beautiful; a rose without so many thorns.

“How long has it been since you felt good?” Tony slides his hand up the inside of Steve’s arm, tracing light across the wrinkle of skin on the inside of his elbow, before dropping off onto the side of his waist. One of Steve’s hip bones angles into Tony’s palm, just above the low-hanging fabric of his plaid sleepwear.

Steve huffs a whisper of a laugh. “Is that a trick question?”

“No.”

“This is a bad idea.”

“We’re not perfect people.” Tony tugs at Steve’s wrist, dragging him back down until Steve’s face is hovering over his own.

Steve hasn’t tried to kiss him, not in the entire time they’ve been sleeping in the same bed, curled up together on the couch watching bad daytime TV, sitting pressed side by side when the doctors had told Tony his arm wouldn’t get any better, and recommended amputation.

But Tony wants Steve to kiss him now.

“We’re going to fuck this up.”

“I don’t want to, Steve. I don’t want to.” Tony searches his face, jaw tight as arousal wars with doubt and fear, plain as day.

“You said we aren’t going to be those people.”

“We’re not.”

“How is that not exactly what this is? Tell me, Tony, because I want to. God please, believe me. I want to. But what’s changed?”

Time does Tony the favour of slowing to a stop, and for a second, he swears that they hang there, suspended between reality and the fantasy that Tony’s clung to for the better part of a decade. The answer is so obvious now, and maybe there will be more conversations to be had, and maybe he’ll never marry Steve again because he’s a betting man and the odds have never been in their favour. Not from the start.

But he wants him and he wants him because…

“You, Steve. You’ve changed.” Tony brushes his knuckles over Steve’s cheekbone, framing his face until his thumb drags across Steve’s bottom lip.

Something shifts in the air, in the room, in the space between Steve and Tony. The space that’s been there for years narrows into a singular focus and Tony’s tired of fighting it. He’s spent so long pretending that things are going to improve and one day he’ll wake up happy with everything he could ever imagine. Except Steve is never there, and he’s always left with a distinct feeling of discontentment.

Maybe it’s alright if Steve hurts him from time to time.

A little pain with the pleasure never hurt anyone. And Tony’s denying himself all the love he’s ever felt in this world. He reminds himself with an unsteady breath that Steve has changed, he’s seen it plain as day in the letters Steve has sent him. Hell, he thinks about the picture from years ago, the one Bucky had sent after the benefit when the divorce was still fresh, and thinks that Steve’s been busy changing for years.

The leap of faith feels worth it. And if he’s jumping right into the fire, it won’t be so bad. Tony’s been burned before.

Steve turns his face just so and presses a kiss into Tony’s palm, chasing his pulse south and kissing the inside of his wrist. He leans over Tony and hesitates, searching Tony’s eyes with his own, before he closes the rest of the space between them and kisses him.

It’s foreign and unusual, not the kisses that Tony remembers but something more delicate. As if Steve truly understands the fragility that he holds in his hands and Tony is grateful for that because with Steve’s mouth on his and his tongue tracing along the seam of his lips Tony feels like spun sugar ready to shatter.

He doesn’t want to break this time.

“Like you mean it.” Tony can’t resist goading him, licking behind his teeth between quick words. “Kiss me like you’ve missed me, soldier.”

Steve groans into Tony’s open mouth and sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, pulling it into his own to suck before he dives in further, all but fucking his tongue into Tony’s mouth and that’s it. That’s the way. There’s the Steve Rogers who wants to possess him, consume him. Steve kisses him deep enough to make his toes curl and pleasure race along the length of his body and back again, layering on thick streams of desire that leave him gasping.

Tony grips Steve’s jaw to hold him still, rolling his hips up into the crease of Steve’s hip where he finds Steve hard and swollen in his pants, following the movement to thrust down against Tony. It’s perfect, everything that Tony remembers and completely new at the same time. But this is Steve, this is his husband. This is the love of his life.

“I love you.” Steve brushes the hair off his face and to Tony’s distress, he slows down. Steve kisses the corner of his mouth, the edge of his jaw, dipping lower to suck a light bruise into his throat. The urgency dissolves and Tony’s cock doesn’t know what to do with this new development, still straining up seeking contact and the warm hollow of Steve’s abdomen.

“Wha—”

“This can be enough. I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow and think that this is a mistake.” Steve leans back on his elbows but lets Tony take the rest of his weight where he’s pinned in place.

“I’m not going to regret this.”

“You say that now, but Tony I remember the look on your face. The way you couldn’t bear to be near me afterward. If we’re going to try—”

“This is different,” Tony shakes his head, using his good hand to lift Steve’s chin when he breaks eye contact and fixes on a spot over Tony’s shoulder. Steve must be feeling equally uncertain, and as much as Tony would prefer to forget, he remembers the look on Steve’s face too. The way that Steve had sobbed into his chest and loved him anyway. “Listen to me.” Steve meets his eye. “I know how I feel and I know what I want. And I want you. Now. Whatever you want to give me. So do you trust me? Because the only reason you should be saying no right now is because you don’t want to, not because you think you know better than I do.”

Tony knows that he’s not fighting fair, and Steve plays right into the palm of his hand. “I want you. God, do you have any idea how much I want you?”

Tony kisses him, straining up to kiss him with everything that he has and shows Steve that this is okay. Even if it could destroy them both, it’s still okay. Tony’s willing to get hurt again.

Steve muffles a moan into Tony’s lips and that’s all it takes. The urgency rushes back anew and Tony wraps his legs around Steve’s waist, holding him down so he can shove up against him, desperate and needy for any sort of friction his neglected cock can have. Steve matches him the way he always had, thrust for thrust, kiss for kiss, shoving a hand underneath Tony’s thin t-shirt to explore bare skin.

He’s not the man Steve once knew and his body reflects the toll the years have taken but Steve’s touching him as if he’s priceless and carved from marble, gasping into his mouth as he maps his skin like the New World. If Steve never stops touching him it’ll be too soon.

“What do you want? Tony, what? Anything you want.” Steve noses at his throat, pressing kisses from the hollow at the base up to his left ear where he sucks the lobe into his mouth and groans, and Tony thinks he must remember how that drives him wild. Heat licks through his body, forcing more blood into his impossibly hard cock.

“Oh fuck, I want to suck you.”

Steve jerks hard against his stomach and drops his forehead to Tony’s shoulder. “Your arm—”

“I want you to sit on my chest and fuck my mouth, Steve. I don’t want you to be gentle, I want you to make me feel it. I want to do this for you. And I want you to _watch_.” Tony licks his lips and swallows hard, tugging on the back of Steve’s hair until he gets with the picture and bursts into motion, throwing the blankets off and tugging Tony’s boxers down as he goes so his prick slaps back against his stomach with an obscene smack.

Steve shucks his own sleepwear, tugging his shirt over his head and getting caught on the way out before he’s kneeling back onto the bed, hesitant and determined all at once. In the end, the angle isn’t great and Tony hasn’t thought this through as much as he’d thought. Otherwise, it’s perfect. Glorious even, the way that Steve slides heavy between his lips, caressing the flat of his tongue and rewarding Tony with little jewels of pre-come when Tony hollows his cheeks and swirls his tongue over the tip.

Steve rests a hand at the side of his face and when Tony opens his eyes and follows the short trail of hair on Steve’s stomach up his abdomen, over his chest, and to his flawless, handsome face, Steve is staring back. His body is curled over Tony’s in a tight arc, as if he’s desperate to be as close to Tony as possible even now, and for the first time since Tony’s survived, he feels alive.

He feels alive, fucking his goddamn husband.

He pulls back, rasping around a throat already rubbed raw by Steve’s cock. “Come on, Steve. Let me have it.”

Steve’s eyes flutter closed and his mouth drops open into a soundless gasp as Tony swallows him back down to the root, holding him in his mouth and down into the entrance to his throat, swallowing hard. Two hands tease into his hair, careful with where the snap has damaged the right side of his face, and hold him still before starting to rock Tony back and forth along the length of his cock.

It’s not long before Steve picks up the pace, groaning and rolling his hips as Tony explores the defined curve of his ass with one hand, spreading and kneading. He slides a finger down the crease of Steve’s ass and feels him shiver so he does it again, lingering over the pucker of his hole and pressing light against the tender flesh there.

“Tony, oh my god.” Something wet splashes against Tony’s cheek and he startles, eyes flying open when he realizes that Steve is crying. The little droplets are rolling down his cheeks, even as he tries to keep his eyes open, and Tony almost gags, his throat closing up as tears threaten behind his eyes.

He doesn’t want to cry, damn it.

Tony hollows out his cheeks and sucks harder, determined to push Steve over the edge right now, tears and all. He slides his tongue along the sensitive space under the head, pokes lightly into the slit, and lets Steve control the pace, taking him faster, deeper until Steve is gasping little breaths that sound suspiciously like sobs and the rolling of his hips becomes unsteady.

Steve comes with a bitten off groan, eyelids flickering as he loses himself in the pleasure and digs his fingers into Tony’s scalp, holding him in place without choking him on Steve’s cock. Every muscle in Steve’s body goes tense as he thrusts stream after stream across the back of Tony’s tongue, down his throat as he swallows repeatedly, desperate to take it all if he can.

When Steve finally lets him go, he’s gasping, a hairbreadth away from coming without Steve laying a hand on him because it feels so good, so right. This is where Tony’s always meant to be.

Steve brushes a hand across his wet cheeks and slides down Tony’s body without a word. He kneels between his legs and presses a kiss to his belly, right below his belly button, before he leans in and sucks Tony down to the root.

It doesn’t take much, just a hand in Steve’s hair and the almost-black depth of his eyes peering up at Tony around his cock in Steve’s mouth paired with the persistent drag of his tongue and Tony is coming in seconds. The air is punched out of his lungs, and his body curls upward with a desperate whine and a flurry of _yesyesohfuckyes_ as Steve continues his assault, sucking and licking long past Tony’s orgasm until he’s flinching away from the stimulation.

Tony takes a moment to catch his breath, cradling Steve’s head to his stomach. “Feel better this time?”

Steve laughs, a pure and genuine laugh. “So much better.” But he hesitates. “Tell me again you’re not going to regret this tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to regret this tomorrow.”

Steve groans and heaves his massive bulk sideways, crawling back up until he can curve his arms around Tony’s good side and pull him in close. He lays there with his hands stroking over Tony’s chest and belly and traces little patterns in the wiry hair he finds there.

“Sleep now,” Steve breaths into his ear. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Steve gets it right another week later, after half a dozen heartfelt and weepy conversations, when Tony starts to panic. When Steve’s arms around him feel like a vice and Steve’s voice in his ear as he’s drifting off to sleep triggers layers upon layers of fear and resentment because that delicate space between wake and sleep can be a tempting siren, drawing him into old memories that leave his chest aching and his hand trembling.

Steve asks him to talk, holds his hands while he does, and offers acceptance in return. He’s patient and kind, not so different from the man Tony’s known, but he listens.

He makes Tony promises that Tony wants to believe, then does.

It feels too good to be true but Tony would be betraying the deepest part of himself if he didn’t have one ear cocked, waiting for the other shoe to fall. For now, he stays.

Steve is still getting it right a month later when Helen confirms what the other doctors have said; amputation is the best option. Tony had been prepared for it, but the word amputation still makes him wince and sit up marginally straighter, holding himself up with the sheer force of his pride. Even with the arm gone he’ll still have scars, hideous ones that span chest to back and have seared away at his face including some of the hair around his ear.

Beside him, one hip against the edge of the examination bed, Steve is silent. His face is an unreadable mask and for the first time, Tony sees just how advanced Steve’s poker face has become. He gives nothing away, not even when they’re in the car driving towards the mansion with one hand on Tony’s knee.

“What do you think?” Tony moves restlessly in his seat, not fully comfortable.

“It’s not my decision to make, Tony. What do you think?”

“But I want to hear what you think.”

Steve quirks an unusual smile, the right corner of his mouth quivering before it tips up and he shoots him a genuine flash of teeth.

“It doesn’t matter. If I tell you what I think, before you’ve made a decision, I’ll just be someone you can blame later.”

Tony narrows his eyes and points with the index finger on his good hand. “So you do have an opinion?”

Steve is infuriating like this. In a perfect world, Steve would just give Tony the answer. There’d be no cause for concern because Steve has a tactical head on his shoulders and could provide Tony with the best plan of attack and a series of secondary plans if needed. It would be so much easier if Steve would just tell him what he thinks, because Tony knows he has an opinion he must be dying to share. He _always_ has an opinion.

Steve shakes his head, eyes focused on the expanding stretch of highway in the midday sun.

Tony feels frustration clawing at the back of his mind. He’s already going to have to lose the arm, he knows that, and it feels supremely unfair that Steve can sit there and not say a word. As if it doesn’t matter. As if he doesn’t care. As if he really trusts Tony to—

“Oh.” Understanding dawns on him. “This is one of the things.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is a—oh my god, are you serious right now? This is a thing! You’re not telling me what you think because you don’t want me to do something just because it’s what you’d do? This is you ‘trusting me’ to know myself best? Like with Barnes, right? Steve?” Tony gives him a disbelieving look because seriously, what the fuck?

Steve takes an even breath and Tony can all but see the count he works through in his head before he’s turning off on the nearest exit, and pulling the car to a stop on a country road Tony’s never driven down before.

When he shuts off the engine and turns in his seat, one hand on the console that separates them, Tony follows the movement of his fingers and struggles to meet his eye.

“This is me trusting that you know what’s right for you.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “This feels scripted. It’s a trap. You don’t really mean it. Who are you and where is Steve Rogers?”

Steve laughs, genuinely laughs and Tony can’t help but crack a smile too, even if he is wildly confused and a little concerned about the possibility of Skrulls. As if he hadn’t had enough to worry about, before Captain Marvel had started telling him tales. 

“Maybe in a way, it is. This doesn’t come natural to me, Tony. I’m not sure it ever will. It’s killing me not to tell you what I think. But do I know that I should keep my mouth shut?” Steve ducks his head and gives Tony a rueful look. “Absolutely.”

On the tip of his tongue, Tony wants to ask, _what’s the catch?_ He takes a moment to weigh Steve’s response in his mind and considers that the worst-case scenario is Steve tells him he would have known better later, if Tony is unhappy. Although he isn’t certain he’ll be unhappy sans burnt arm and it gives him a new project to work on. Whatever he’s already built for Barnes, he can improve on a hundred times over for himself.

Which is selfish. He’ll give Barnes the newest model too.

“And there’s no catch?”

“No catch, Tony.”

“Then take me home, I’m hungry.”

“Yes, Tony.”

Summer bleeds into autumn and Steve is still a new man.

Tony stops doubting what he’s seeing and starts living again, revelling in the way that he feels whole even with a missing limb and a prosthetic that still pinches in the evening. Barnes tells him it gets better, or at least he had when Tony had been feeling particularly maudlin and called to complain to a fellow cyborg.

The Avengers call a meeting at the Compound, restored for the second time since its creation, and Tony sits silent in his chair, listening as the team devises a plan for the Infinity Stones. There’s a unanimous agreement that they can’t remain in the future but it’s not as clear cut who will take them back to the past.

After a lengthy discussion, Tony excuses himself for some air and Steve gives him a quizzical look that he shakes off, resting a hand light on his shoulder as he passes him and wanders the Compound grounds. Being here after everything overwhelms him. Tony had retired for a reason, and despite the rocky beginning, he had enjoyed being retired. Being Iron Man again had almost killed him, twice.

There’s no eager anticipation of waiting to put the suit on again.

Tony thinks maybe he’s finally done with Iron Man. Perhaps it’s time for someone else to take a turn. Tony’s spent some of the best years of his life defending the world and he’s damn proud of that. He’ll always be proud of that. But now he wants to rest. Figure out the next step. Close the chapter, so to speak.

He’s still ruminating when Steve finds him later, reclining on the luxurious, oversized lounger on the balcony to their suite.

“I hate this thing,” Tony calls out when he hears the glass slide open and Steve’s heavy footfalls crossing the distance between them. “It’s ridiculous.”

The lounger is practically a bed, shaped like a half-cracked egg with a canopy that keeps the sun off Tony’s skin. He wants one for the mansion. Tony hardly has to move off to one side for Steve to fit with ease onto the space beside him. Hell, there’s room for another super soldier or two, if Tony were ever so lucky.

“You love this.” Steve drops a kiss on the side of his head and stretches out beside him, toeing off his shoes and crossing his arms behind his head. The sun laps at his socked feet and disappears where the shade starts at his knees.

“Did you figure it out?”

“Yeah. We’re going to take them back, tomorrow preferably.”

“Good, but who?”

Steve gives him a blank look and then frowns, gesturing between them. “We are, Tony.”

“I—” The air is startlingly cold on his bare arm now, and Tony’s brain doesn’t process as quickly as he needs it to. We? As in, Steve and Tony? As in, Steve thinks that after all they’ve been through Tony would ever go near those stones again? Even if taking them back to the past is the right thing, what they’ve promised, can Steve really believe that Tony would do that?

“Tony?”

“I can’t, Steve. I won’t. Why did you—I can’t do that.” Tony wonders if this is what shell shock feels like. He gives Steve what he imagines is a dumb look and holds up the prosthetic. “I only have one arm.”

“It’s fine, I’ll be there with you the whole time. Someone had to do it, right? It’s an easy enough job, and after you figured everything out the first time, I thought we’d make a good team. Been a while since we worked as a team, huh?” Steve nudges Tony’s shoulder with his own and Tony just stares up at him, disbelieving and dismayed.

This is it. This is the other shoe falling.

“I’m not doing this. No, Steve. I took a turn. I took a lot of turns. I took so many turns I don’t have an arm now! Why would you—how could you volunteer me for something like this without even asking me?”

“I—” Resolve hardens across Steve’s face and he sits up a fraction straighter. Something black starts to unfold in Tony’s belly, familiar and foul. “Tony, we have an obligation. To our team, to the world. Hell, to the galaxy at this point. You can’t tell me you’re just going to walk away from that. I know that you’ve been through a lot—”

“No. Do you hear me? No.” Tony scrambles backward when Steve tries to reach out for him shaking his head. Pain erupts behind the arc reactor and Tony’s left hand startles away with a series of violent tremors and it’s supremely unfair that Tony should have a still-painful prosthetic on his right, and nerve damage and tremors in his left.

“Tony, hold on, let’s figure this out.”

“You figure out whatever you have to, Cap. I already told you no. And I would have said it a lot sooner if you’d bothered to ask me. Jesus.” He ran his rejection of a hand through his hair and stared at Steve with wide eyes.

It’s 2016 and they’re here all over again, aren’t they?

He’s been a fool. Tony’s been an absolute fool because people never really change. Steve’s fed him just the right amount of bullshit, handed it over on a silver platter with one hand while the other weaves tricks and lies behind his back.

For a second, he thinks it must be a game, one that Steve’s played so well, lulling Tony into a sense of security, letting him feel like he mattered, like Steve finally heard him, trusted him, _loved him_ the way that he needed. Then bringing down the gavel and reinstating his rule into law all over again.

All these years, all these miles on Steve soul, and here they are at odds once again.

Steve opens his mouth to say something more and Tony cuts him off. “I can’t do this. I can’t. Fuck this was—” he breaks off with a laugh that sounds half hysterical in his ears, “do whatever you need to do Steve. But I’m through. There’s no more Iron Man, okay? We’re not a team. We’re not anything.”

“Tony—” But Tony’s already in motion, pushing back through the screen door and snapping orders to FRIDAY to seal down the workshop before he’s even in the elevator.

Steve comes, hours later, and taps on the glass while Tony’s lying prone on the old futon that somehow survived the destruction. Or maybe it’s new and just ugly.

The tapping goes on for a painfully long time and when it stops and Tony hazards a glance at the door, Steve is sitting there, back pressed to the window panes with his head hanging in his hands.

There are hitches in his shoulders and Tony wonders if he’s crying.

He drops his head back to the futon and thinks about the irony of it all. Guess he needs to start looking for a new place to call home all over again.

When he looks back, minutes or hours later, Steve is gone.

Tony is shoving his belongings into their luggage when Steve finds him the next day.

He’s ready to go home, with or without Steve, preferably without him at this point, and the anger has bled away. There’s probably something to be said for the way Tony cycles through his emotions, but nothing has ever been coherent when it comes to his relationship with Steve.

All he knows is that two plus two is four and Steve Rogers making decisions for him means things are headed south and he’s not sticking around long enough to get hurt this time. Not any more than he already is, with his wounded pride and his brittle heart held together by the sheer force of his will.

Steve doesn’t say anything when he walks into the room, standing near the bed where Tony is haphazardly packing his belongings into the duffel like an overstuffed sleeping bag. It must be driving Steve mad, Tony’s vindictive mind supplies, because Steve Rogers still packs a bag the way he had during the war, every item in its place to conserve and maximize space.

When Steve finally speaks, it’s soft and almost inviting. “I took the stones back. No issues. We don’t ever have to worry about them again.”

“Fantastic.”

“Tony…” Steve’s hands flutter at his sides and Tony watches out of the corner of his eyes as Steve rests his hands at his back, then brings them forward to settle at his hips, then clutching the top of his belt. Anything to avoid crossing his arms, he realizes a moment later, and Tony wonders who taught Steve that trick. Sam, probably. Or Barnes, in his effort to look like a less threatening goat herder.

Tony ignores him. Doesn’t bother to look up.

“So that’s it then?”

“Yeah, Cap. That’s it.”

“You do that, you know. Call me Cap. When you’re trying to push me away. I think maybe it makes it easier for you, as if you can separate all the things you hate about me and shove them under the umbrella of Captain America. As if you don’t have to face me, Steve Rogers, when you’re hurting. When I’ve hurt you.”

Tony tenses, hands balling into fists in the cotton of one of his Metallic t-shirts. “So you’ve just got it all figured out then. Congratulations. Did you unlock some sort of level achievement with that play?”

“I can’t believe after everything, you’re just going to walk away.”

“Well, believe it. No harm, no foul, this time around, right? We gave it a good run. Just not in the cards. Nobody’s fault.” _It’s your fault, you ruin everything_.

“Tony, won’t you even look at me?”

With gritted teeth, Tony forces himself to meet Steve’s eye. Steve looks destroyed.

It’s an homage to the way Steve’s features had contorted when Tony had handed him the divorce papers, but infinitely worse because this time there’s an additional layer of fear that borders on terror. There’s something pinched around Steve’s mouth, the way it quivers in the corner, and Tony can see the rapid thrum of his pulse in the hollow of his throat.

“What?” Tony says, clipped and strained.

“I fucked up yesterday. I know that. And I know what I did wrong. I’m sorry, Tony. I’m so very sorry, and I don’t blame you for being angry. I took the stones back, and I apologized to the team for speaking on your behalf.” Steve speaks as if the words are practiced and for a split-second Tony can picture him standing in front of his bathroom mirrors, hands gripping the edge of the counter, repeating the speech over and over again until he gets it right. “I can see that you’re scared. I would be too. But you’ve got to stop pushing me away, Tony. I’m going to fuck up again, I’m not going to get it perfect, hell, I’m not going to get anywhere close. You can’t push me away like yesterday. You can’t shut me out and not be willing to try.”

“Oh, so this is my fault?”

“It’s nobody’s fault!” Steve’s voice jumps a few notches but there’s no anger, only a deep, genuine desperation that Tony can feel in his bones. A desire to be heard and understood. Tony knows exactly how that feels. “It’s both our fault. I can handle it if you’re pissed at me, but you can’t go back to shutting me out, not again. Not now. I’d give anything to get it right every time, but you told me once that that’s not the point so here I am, Tony, telling you I fucked up and you’re expecting me to be perfect.”

Tony narrows his eyes, crosses his arms across his chest, and steels himself for whatever’s coming next. It’s only a few beats too late that he realizes he’s doing all the things he hates seeing in Steve when he’s angry, and he tries to shake out his posture as best he can.

When Tony doesn’t know what to say, Steve fills the silence. “You’ve been waiting for this. You’ve been testing me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Tony huffs a breath and feels his mouth pull back into a sneer he tries to prevent, but loses. “So what if I have? It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it?”

“You stubborn, condescending—” Steve breaks off and steps into the space between them.

Unlike all the other times, Tony doesn’t feel threatened. He doesn’t feel the need to suit up and knock Steve down a few pegs, or prepare for the figurative punch in the jaw that always follows the insults. No, Tony feels uncertain. Unstable. Steve is pulling the rug out from underneath him with little yanks, not enough force to unbalance him entirely, but just enough to leave him wobbling and reaching out to steady himself.

He grips Steve’s forearm when it enters his space and holds on tight, to pull him closer or push him away he couldn’t say.

“Okay,” Tony says, buying for time while realization dawns slower than the beginning of time. “Okay, maybe I’ve miscalculated here—”

“I can’t be the only one doing things different, Tony. You want to talk, we talk. No more shutting me out and pushing me away. That was a really awful thing to do. I know you heard me. You haven’t done that in—” Steve shakes his head like it doesn’t actually matter. “But I get it, okay? I get it because this is terrifying and I don’t want to lose you either. I’m terrified every damn day but you’re worth it. Do you hear me, you hard-headed asshole, you’re worth it, I love you, and I am so very sorry.”

Tony searches Steve’s face. It’s not what he’s been expecting, Steve has caught him completely off guard and challenged him in a way he’s not used to but welcomes with open arms because Steve is right. There’s no shame in it, and Tony’s never been the biggest fan of hypocrisy.

“Fuck, you’re right.” The giggle that escapes him sounds hysterical and it’s not a far cry from how he’s starting to feel.

Steve blinks once. A second time. “What?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I—damn.” Tony shoots him a sheepish look and squeezes his forearm. The unilateral decision to run for the hills feels like a small error now, and Tony sets it aside for review later. Now, other focuses require his attention. “I fucked up. I’m sorry, too.”

“You’re sorry?” Steve asks the question with slow precision, and looks at Tony like a spooked horse to be tamed. “Just like that?”

“Just like that. I was wrong. Let me make it up to you.” Tony reaches up and pulls Steve’s head down, licking into his mouth to chase the taste of his apologies as Steve freezes and goes still, hands up as if he needs to prove that he wasn’t the one that started this. It only makes Tony try harder, pressing himself up against Steve’s front and rolling his hips until Steve’s arms get with the program and come down to encircle his waist.

“What’s happening? What just happened?”

“Makeup sex.” Tony’s words get tangled between their lips and Steve smiles into the kiss, kissing him back with equal fervour and nudging him backward towards the bed. At the last second Tony pivots, taking Steve with him and shoving him backward onto the bed as he lets out a startled burst of laughter. He’d expected this would be more difficult. He’d expected to feel worse about everything.

But here Steve is, with his crystal-clear logic, calling Tony on his bullshit and apologizing without question, and maybe Tony can let it be that simple. It’s been good for months, and he has been waiting for the anvil to come hammering down, but to what end? Because he’s desperate for this to end all over again?

No, Tony is desperate to stay. He’ll spend the rest of his life in Steve’s arms, in Steve’s bed, in Steve’s life if only Steve will let him. If only Steve stays exactly like this. Imperfect, and admitting it.

“Take your pants off, Steve.”

“Don’t you—don’t you think we should talk about this a little more?” Steve’s breathless, a high flush rising on his cheeks, and Tony smirks down at him.

“Fine, then take mine off instead.” He gives Steve a cheeky wink and together they get Tony out of his pants, shoving them down around his ankles so Steve can cup him through the thin fabric of his underwear. The underwear isn’t long for this world though, and Steve shoves them down after his pants before he scoots to the edge of the bed and settles one hand on Tony’s hip and wraps the other around the base of his cock, brushing the tip with his lips. Tony gasps and tries not to close his eyes because Steve is looking up at him, mouth parted and teasing along his cockhead, a cheeky look on his face that drives Tony wild.

“I was afraid,” Tony starts, brushing Steve’s hair back from his forehead as he leans forward and licks a hot line up the underside of Tony’s cock, tipping it up and towards his belly for better access. Tomorrow, Tony will register Steve’s tongue as a restricted weapon, the way he licks and laves the sensitive underside and slowly pulls the tip into his mouth, hollowing his cheeks before sliding all the way down. “It felt like nothing was different. I was so angry with you. I just wanted to hurt you—oh Jesus Christ that feels, _shit_ —I wanted to. I’m sorry Steve, fuck, sometimes I just want to hurt you so bad.”

Steve moans around his cock and Tony laughs, tugging at the lobe of his ear because Steve’s thinking something decidedly dirtier than Tony had meant, before sliding his hand back to cup the back of Steve’s head and hold him in place. He’ll die here, in Steve’s mouth, his aching cock brushing the back of Steve’s throat as he works up to taking him deeper. Steve’s always been a marvel at sucking cock, taking Tony all the way in and keeping him there, until Tony’s shivering and trembling, frantic with desire but not ready to let go.

“It wasn’t fair. I know it wasn’t, gorgeous, I know. And I know you’re not perfect. God, Steve, you’re perfect at sucking my cock though, aren’t you? Fuck. I don’t need you to be perfect and I’m going to work on that. I promise.” Tony thrusts forward, forcing Steve to take him deeper and Steve takes it all like it’s his life’s calling.

Spit trickles out of the side of his mouth but Steve doesn’t seem to notice, making little noises of contentment and losing himself in a rhythm that drives Tony wild.

“That enough talking, sweetheart? Because I need to fuck you. I need to fuck you right now Steve, please say I can.”

Steve lets Tony’s cock slide out of his mouth and scrambles backward on the bed, tugging at his belt and shoving his pants off with a speed Tony assumes must be unique to super-soldiers. For a moment he tries to remember when the last time he’s had Steve like this is, and he falters, fumbling with a bottle of lube pried out of his luggage. It’s been so long since he’s been inside Steve and they both know that this means something, Tony can see it on Steve’s face as clear as day.

Steve’s letting him have this. Letting him have him, when he’s vulnerable and raw, when Tony has been less than perfect and hardly deserves it by half. But Steve’s giving this to him, handing over the reins and giving him control. For a man like Steve, it’s a gift Tony cherishes with everything that he is.

He slides the slick across Steve’s puckered entrance, relishing the way Steve clenches and releases before Tony’s even breached him, already begging to be filled. And he deserves a reward for that pretty picture, so Tony fills him carefully with one finger, then a second, whispering endearments and demands to relax as he seeks out Steve’s hot spot and strokes his fingers across it.

“Oh, Tony.” Steve’s prostate lights up his body and every muscle strains and releases as Tony thrusts into him at a controlled pace until Steve’s body is relaxed and open under his hands. Running his metal fingers up Steve’s abdomen, Tony rolls one of his nipples until Steve is making little hitching gasps and takes the briefest moment to suck the tip of Steve’s cock into his mouth before he crawls further onto the bed, pressing Steve’s legs apart.

Steve opens for him, readjusting and tipping his hips up, reaching out with his arms, curling around Tony entirely as the wet heat of his body welcomes Tony inside and Tony can bury himself to the hilt. Everything narrows into Steve’s eyes on his, the clench of his ass around Tony’s cock, the taste of his mouth, and Tony drives into him with slow rolls of his hips.

“Tony, yes. Yes sweetheart, come on. Like you mean it,” Steve pants, bracing his feet on the bed for leverage and trying to arch harder into Tony’s thrusts.

Tony bites the edge of his jaw and reaches between them to palm Steve’s length in his fist, squeezing with the lightest pressure, barely more than a tease. “I am! I am fucking you like I mean it.” Tony laughs, breathless. “I’m fucking you like I love you, because I love you, Steve. Jesus Christ, do I ever.”

Steve groans and strong thighs squeeze at Tony’s hips. “Now you want to be a sap? Now?”

God, Tony loves when they can laugh like this. When sex is playful and meaningful and so incredibly deep and they don’t need to fuck each other fast and dirty. Not that he complains when Steve fucks into him like it’s their last moments on earth. But this… this is something else entirely.

“Yes now, damn, Steve I want to stay inside you forever.”

“Then stay,” Steve brushes his lips across Tony’s throat then tips his head to the side so he can capture his mouth. They stay like that for minutes that feel like hours, losing themselves in each other, until Tony can’t stand it anymore. Lifting one of Steve’s legs at the knee and hiking it higher, he angles down and thrusts harder, with purpose.

Steve groans a steady stream of expletives that send shivers of heat up and down Tony’s spine and he feels his balls draw up tight to his body, his stomach curling with a tension that threatens to snap. With expert flicks of his wrist, he twists his fist around Steve’s cock and watches as his eyes flutter shut and his body tenses, arching forward and swallowing Tony’s length inside him entirely as he shatters and comes.

Tony’s not long behind him, a few thrusts more into the clenching vice of Steve’s body and he’s chanting Steve’s name into his mouth, fucking as deep as he can so Steve knows exactly who he belongs to. Exactly where he belongs.

When he can catch his breath, Tony eases back, slipping from Steve’s body, but hovers over him, petting a hand up and down the side of his ribs. Steve gathers his face into his massive palms and kisses him again, and again, until Tony is breathless and glassy-eyed.

“I love you,” Steve says, and Tony sets all his doubts aside.

He’ll stay. Steve is worth the risk.

In the middle of the night, Tony wakes feeling sated and deliciously warm. He buries closer to Steve’s heat, pressing his face into the hard lines of his chest and curling his arm tighter around his trim waist. Steve’s breathing is too shallow and for a second, Tony almost let’s himself drift back to sleep, but Steve starts tracing patterns on his skin and he forces his eyes open.

A single finger draws a light line from the dip of his lower back, halfway up his spine and back down again. Over and over, soothing and calm.

“Steve?” Tony whispers into the darkness, swimming through the haze of sleep. “What is it?”

Steve adjusts next to him, sliding down the mattress and forcing Tony back onto his own pillow. He covers Tony’s fingers with his own, now pressed into his chest just below his heart. In the shadows, Tony can make out the cerulean of Steve’s eyes, half-hidden by long lashes.

“I’m not an easy man to love,” Steve says, voice low.

Tony reaches up to pet his face, tracing his fingers across the harsh line of stubble forming at his jaw.

“No, sweetheart, you’re not.”

The curve of Steve’s lip twists upward under his touch. For a fleeting moment Tony realizes he gets to have this again. He gets to have this for the rest of their lives and it steals his breath away. Loving Steve has never been easy.

“And neither am I.”

**Author's Note:**

> And that brings us to the end of the story. Thank you for reading this accidental fix-it, that was never meant to be anything more than sad, break-up sex with a handful of angst.
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts, and your comments are well-loved and cherished. 
> 
> If you need to scream at me more, you can find me hanging out on Discord in the POTS Server under the same handle, or on tumblr at sapphic-futurist.tumblr.com. 
> 
> And if you have recommendations for under-appreciated, less well-known angsty stories and darkfic, I will happily be your new best friend so please drop me a link.


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